Dr. Gray disputes Global Warming is human caused

[caneman]

http://www.reporterherald.com/Top-Story.asp?ID=6894

[x-y-no]

He's been doing that for a long time.

[Zardoz]

He's absolutely right about this, at least:

...But even if humans cause global warming, there’s not much people can do, Gray said. China and India will continue to pump out greenhouse gases, and alternative energy sources are expensive.

All we can do is hope that Dr. James Lovelock is wrong...

[x-y-no]

He's absolutely right about this, at least:

...But even if humans cause global warming, there’s not much people can do, Gray said. China and India will continue to pump out greenhouse gases, and alternative energy sources are expensive.

All we can do is hope that Dr. James Lovelock is wrong...

Well, if one approaches any problem with an attitude of total defeat, then one is likely to be defeated. I will agree with that much.

[Zardoz]

He's absolutely right about this, at least:

...But even if humans cause global warming, there’s not much people can do, Gray said. China and India will continue to pump out greenhouse gases, and alternative energy sources are expensive.

All we can do is hope that Dr. James Lovelock is wrong...

Well, if one approaches any problem with an attitude of total defeat, then one is likely to be defeated. I will agree with that much.

China is building three new coal-fired power plants a month. Over 6000 Chinese die in coal mining accidents every year. The Indian government has as much as said that their economy comes first, no matter what the consequences. The reality is that no matter what the rest of the world does to try to improve the situation, everything will be overwhelmed by what the Chinese and Indians are doing.

[x-y-no]

Thanks for making my point for me so effectively, Zardok. Because of course current trends will inevitably continue indefinitiely without any possiblity of modification or mitigation - that goes without saying, right? After all, it's the Chinese and the Indians ... they couldn't possibly be capable of participating in any kind of long-term mitigation strategy.

You're right. We may as well just throw up our hands in despair.

[jlauderdal]

http://www.reporterherald.com/Top-Story.asp?ID=6894

I will take this with about a grain of salt like his seasonal forecasts. he might be right or he might be wrong but in the scheme of things it doesn't matter. glad mother nature has so far taken it easy on us this year.

[kevin]

He's absolutely right about this, at least:

...But even if humans cause global warming, there’s not much people can do, Gray said. China and India will continue to pump out greenhouse gases, and alternative energy sources are expensive.

All we can do is hope that Dr. James Lovelock is wrong...

Well, if one approaches any problem with an attitude of total defeat, then one is likely to be defeated. I will agree with that much.

China is building three new coal-fired power plants a month. Over 6000 Chinese die in coal mining accidents every year. The Indian government has as much as said that their economy comes first, no matter what the consequences. The reality is that no matter what the rest of the world does to try to improve the situation, everything will be overwhelmed by what the Chinese and Indians are doing.

No absolutely not. Their populations will begin to die and become unproductive due to pollution. Green technologies will by necessity emerge from there. If the situation truely is irreversible, then I have no doubt western civilization will collapse and with it billions of deaths. There simply isn't any other outcome unless sustainable development is achieved. This do nothing attitude is what got us here in the first place.

[Sanibel]

This thread borders on the political. To me Gray, is an establishment insider who knows where his budgets are funded. You'll find that to be the main motivator in most who doubt human-causality in Global Warming. Eventually people will be forced to face the fact that our developed infrastructure is self-destructive when allowed to unlimitedly expand to an unending theoretical horizon. I think it was Haissen who said "The one word these people don't possess in their vocabulary is "enough".

Just recently they found that the methane-bearing permafrost tundra is melting faster than expected and that the failure of the arctic ice pack to form in winter can't be explained by anything other than CO2.

[Furious George]

I've read a few scientific papers regarding GW (from both sides), and I must say it is not straightforward what the problem is and if it's worth fighting. It is very clear that CO2 levels have increased post ind revolution. It is clear that the earth is warming. It is not clear whether or not the increase in CO2 levels is the culprit. It may be likely that some of the increase (if not all) is due to increased CO2. So is man responsible for some of this increase in temp, all of this increase, or none of this increase?

I do respect Dr. Gray for sharing his opinion, and when any journalist says that human induced GW is a fact, I know that it is not true, as many respectable minds debate this.

[terstorm1012]

Without adding much to the discussion, I have seen reports from satelite that the Arctic is now open all the way to the North Pole and usually it is frozen year round.

That's all I have to say. I do respect Dr. Gray's thesis as I respect all theses on this subject. There's a lot more work that needs to be done yet.

[curtadams]

This thread borders on the political. To me Gray, is an establishment insider who knows where his budgets are funded.

Gray has biases, but probably personal, not political. Most scientists put science ahead of political beliefs - the anti-AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) people really have to scrape to find opponents (Gray being one of the few semi-exceptions - he has a personal position against AGW but never publishes any science opposed to it). The shills are almost always funded directly through oil companies and the like - not through traditional peer-review like Gray.

Gray's interest is that he has a hypothesis out for the long-term changes in Atlantic sea surface temps, that they're driven by changes in the thermohaline (Gulf Stream) circulation. This hypothesis has not been doing well scientifically - I'm unaware of any substantial prediction it's successfully made and Gray even had to reverse his hypothesis when measurements started coming in.

Even worse for the hypothesis is that Atlantic SSTs almost exactly track global temperatures - so if AGW is occuring there's nothing for Gray's hypothesis to explain. So Gray probably opposes AGW because it would be the death of one of his pet theories. This is pretty normal in science - for example, Hoyle went to his grave opposing the Big Bang, 40 years after his own theory was conclusively disproved in favor of the Big Bang. The economist Robin Hansen wrote up a nice theoretical paper explaining why scientists are sometimes *economically* rational to support their own theories even when those theories are basically disproven by new evidence.

On a side note, the thermohaline circulation is gruesomely bad for predicting current global warming. For starters, it predicts the ocean should lead the land and that prediction is as wrong as it can be.

[MGC]

I just returned last week from an Alaska cruise on Princess. Let me tell you that if any of you get the opportunity to cruise Alaska GO! Anyway, part of the cruise was up through Glacier Bay. Onboard the ship were several Park Rangers who narrated and answered questions. One of the rangers mentioned that the glaciers were receding due to global warming. Naturally, someone in the crowd said that it was humanity's fault because of all the CO2 that we are putting into the atmosphere. Of course I could not resist and asked then why have the glaciers been receding since the late 1700's? It was at this point that my husband decided to go for a walk as he is all too aware of my opinion on human caused GW. Naturally, the poor Park Ranger didn't have an answer to my question. Anyway, Alaska still has a ton of ice up in the mountains that are flowing to the sea. Several of the glaciers are still advancing so I don't think it is the end of the world just yet........MGC

[kevin]

I do, the industrial revolution and the increasing numbers of domesticated cows. These things didn't happen in 1900.

[brunota2003]

Well...prior to the Little Ice Age, there was a record warmth across the globe...it was warmer than it is now if I remember correctly...go search about the Little Ice Age...pretty interesting subject that shows the Earth itself does warm and cool thru trends...since about 1895ish we have been entering the warming phase again...(which is also the same time that CO2 levels started increasing...so maybe the Earth is warming as part of its trend, however people see it otherwise?)

[curtadams]

Well...prior to the Little Ice Age, there was a record warmth across the globe...it was warmer than it is now if I remember correctly...go search about the Little Ice Age...pretty interesting subject that shows the Earth itself does warm and cool thru trends...since about 1895ish we have been entering the warming phase again...(which is also the same time that CO2 levels started increasing...so maybe the Earth is warming as part of its trend, however people see it otherwise?)

It *was* warmer prior to the Little Ice Age, but current temperatures have jumped past the Medieval Warm Period and, judging by things like Greenland cores, vinyard locations in England, and melts of pristine 1500 yo glaciers, are now somewhere in the neighborhood of Roman times. The big problem is how much more is to come. Even the most conservative estimates put us in the neighborhood of melting Greenland, an unimaginable catastrophe. AGW warms the Arctic more than the natural cycles of the past so it could happen early. I'd be interested if somebody can figure out a proxy for historical measurements of the ice melting all the way to the North Pole this year. How unusual is that? Was polar ice seasonal during Roman times?

[Regit]

I just returned last week from an Alaska cruise on Princess. Let me tell you that if any of you get the opportunity to cruise Alaska GO! Anyway, part of the cruise was up through Glacier Bay. Onboard the ship were several Park Rangers who narrated and answered questions. One of the rangers mentioned that the glaciers were receding due to global warming. Naturally, someone in the crowd said that it was humanity's fault because of all the CO2 that we are putting into the atmosphere. Of course I could not resist and asked then why have the glaciers been receding since the late 1700's? It was at this point that my husband decided to go for a walk as he is all too aware of my opinion on human caused GW. Naturally, the poor Park Ranger didn't have an answer to my question. Anyway, Alaska still has a ton of ice up in the mountains that are flowing to the sea. Several of the glaciers are still advancing so I don't think it is the end of the world just yet........MGC

What is implied by that question could be effectively dismantled in two different ways.

1) Glaciers haven't been melting at their current rate since the late 1700's.

2) The Industrial Revolution, maybe by extreme coincidence, began in the late 1700's.

[CycloneCarl]

Here is a link to a pre-print of an interesting paper:
Recent Cooling of the Upper Ocean
by John M. Lyman, Josh K. Willis, and Gregory C. Johnson
(3.3 MB PDF file)

It appears that the Earth's atmosphere may have an ocean temperature triggered 'valve' over the tropics that releases heat into space when sea temperatures get too high, thus allowing the tropical oceans to 'let off some steam' and providing a mechanism to regulate global temperatures.

[Jim Hughes]

Here is a link to a pre-print of an interesting paper:
Recent Cooling of the Upper Ocean
by John M. Lyman, Josh K. Willis, and Gregory C. Johnson
(3.3 MB PDF file)

It appears that the Earth's atmosphere may have an ocean temperature triggered 'valve' over the tropics that releases heat into space when sea temperatures get too high, thus allowing the tropical oceans to 'let off some steam' and providing a mechanism to regulate global temperatures.

I had talked to an individual about something similar after I wrote my PET Cycle paper. The ozone levels were extremely low in the mid 90's, after the Pinatubo eruption, and a strong positive PET Cycle (The latter means less ozone..cold above)

If the Gaii hypothesis is true then one could possibly expect the earth to respond to this by kickstarting a warming period by way of the oceans. Hence somthing like the positive AMO gets going. It would help if you could see all of the graphs in my discussion.

[Hybridstorm_November2001]

How come everything in science is meant to be a working theory, yet certain theories have seemly became certainties, that are defended with all the zeal of zealots defending their extreme religious beliefs? I belong to the Church of Made Man GW, or I belong to the Church of Natural GW, or even I belong to the Church of Anti-GW. Isn't there any room for a medium, more moderate position? Maybe GW is a natural cycle, that man made activity is impacting? In any regard these debates really suck the air out of the room, if you know what I mean.